6mm Soviets and Mujahadeen

I started two small Afghanistan projects around the same time, one in 6mm for the Soviet invasion and one in 15mm for the period after when various warlords vied for control. I figured I could use alot of the same scenery for both as it would be scale agnostic, small hills in 15mm would become small mountains in 6mm. While the 15mm project has stalled a bit, I managed to get gameable forces painted up in 6mm. The figures are based for the ruleset  "Hind & Seek" which is available online and has some very interesting concepts to give a fun asymmetrical game. Anyway, here are some snaps of my 6mm project. 

Here are some Soviet motor rifle infantry. The sculpts are all Heroics and Ros and I was very impressed with them. They are tiny with nice details and easy to paint. The picture shows four rifle squads on 30x15mm bases and two light machine gun bases on 15mm squares. The tiny dice trays are from Pendraken and will house dice to track casualties. You may notice a gloss finish, I have since sprayed them down with matte varnish for a better look.

Some of the Soviet vehicles -  a few transport trucks, some BTR60s and two T-55s.

A closeup of the T-55s, very nice little sculpts.

And now for the helos. Two Mi-17 Hip and two Mi-24 Hinds. The Hips are kitted out as attack variants but will assume the role of either troop transport or attack choppers depending on the scenario.

The clear flight stands were pirated from Games Workshop and the rotor discs were ordered online from some plastic laser cutting service. They were fairly cheap and I used a small tool to find the center of the discs and drill a hole to attach them to the choppers. Much easier than I thought it would be and I am happy with the appearance.

And now some Afghan mujahadeen forces to include rifle squads, HMGs, sniper, RPG teams, AA guns and a stinger team.

Closeup of the sniper team and a twin barreled ZPU-23.

Close-up of a mujahadeen rifle squad. Sadly, I am slacking in the construction of terrain and villages but I hope to rectify this and get in a game of Hind and Seek.

Lastly, here is a comparison picture of (L-R): Heroics and Ros infantry, an H&R T-55, a GHQ T-80 and Mainforce infantry. 

10mm Carthaginian Army Camp for To The Strongest

I attended one of the 2018 HMGS conventions with my buddies Bill and CreepinDuff. Bill and Duff had played in a game of To The Strongest (TTS) earlier on Friday morning while I watched. We were all impressed with the game and eager to start a project together. As luck would have it, Duff found a huge lot of 10mm Punic Wars figures and we purchased it for a very good price. There was enough lead for Duff and I to split up and each have a decent pair of Roman and Carthaginian armies. The figures were almost all Old Glory with some Pendraken and Magister Militum odds and ends. Being the lead addict that I am, I added several more additions to round out my armies.

Below, you will find my Carthaginian Army Camp. Its a true polygot affair - Pendraken tent and pack horses, Magister Militum elephant and general at table and Old Glory hornist and standard bearer. The base is slightly smaller than a grid square on my TTS game mat. I intentionally wanted a sparse camp and am fairly happy with the results.

 

Old School Gobbo Chariots

I started off in the hobby at an early age when my parents purchased some old MiniFig Napoleonic figures at a flea market. I stayed in historicals until some high school friends got me into warhammer in the mid-90s (one of these friends, CreepinDuff has an awesome blog - FreshMilk with plenty of OldHammer posts). While I am pretty much historical nowadays, I do have sentimental feelings for the old Marauder and Citadel ranges.

 

 

During the early days of the pandemic, I tackled some old goblin projects and made a few ebay purchases to add to my small Warhammer leadpile. Here are two goblin chariots that I painted up:

 

  

On the left (in the red and yellow palette) is an old Citadel goblin battle chariot, to the right (with the blue color theme) is the smaller Marauder chariot.

 

 Here is a frontal shot to give you a good idea of the size difference of the wolves.

 

 The Marauder chariot was a very easy kit to assemble: one piece chariot carriage floor with axle and shaft, carriage front plate, wheels and yoke...5 total pieces. The Marauder wolves are very nice sculpts but on the small side and have very weak ankles. The one wolf's ankles snapped and required some pinning. I went with a blue and natural stained wood scheme and the face sculpted on the front plate was a bit of challenge for me to get right.

The Citadel battle chariot was a little more fiddly to assemble with additional parts. It comprised of carriage floor, carriage sides, wheels, shaft, axle and yoke. Seven total parts and a little trickier to put together. I didn't add the scythes on either chariot and opted to go with archers for both. I have several more of these chariots that I need to assemble and paint up. Stay tuned...

 

Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba

As I slowly stumble my way through the completion of my 10mm Imperial army for Fleurus, I decided to tackle the army commander himself, Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba. In Deo Veritas rules call for the army commander to be on a 50mm base.

This gave me some additional space to make a vignette and I decided to use Vincenzo Carducci's painting of the battle as some inspiration. You can see the painting below:

In the painting, Cordoba is kitted out in armor with a baton and riding a chestnut horse. A black hat with red feather, red sash and what appears to be blue pants and gold lace trim complete the ensemble. His riding partner has a tan hat, red sash, armor and appears to be riding a grey. 

In the lower left foreground two men are busy mortally wounding each other. One is in yellow and black or brown and the other in red and white.

With the painting as a guide, I went about tackling my army commander and here is the finished product. All of the figures are Old Glory with the exception of the casualty who is from Pendraken. 

Only one of the OG generals was in armor and hat, I decided to use him as Cordoba's escort. For Cordoba himself, I used a sculpt which was carrying a small baton. I painted the clothing and horse kit in a mid blue and opted to forgo the gold trim. 

To help identify the commander as being Hapsburg, and to help fill the base, I trimmed an officer and standard bearer from a command strips and added it to the base. For the officer, I painted him in clothes inspired by one of the two combatants in the Carducci painting. He is decked out in red pants and off white coat. The standard is just a generic ragged burgundian cross in red and yellow. 

The final figure is the Pendraken casualty. I gave him yellow pants and shirt with a dark brown vest and armoured helmet. He was inspired by the other combatant in the foreground of Carducci's painting.

Now that Cordoba has been completed, I only have a few more units to finish: the fourth and final tercio (they seem to paint up well despite comprising of about 60 figures), a unit of mounted arqubusiers and the third and final wing commander base (I believe it is Jean/Johan de Gaucher). After that it is on to the Protestant Union army led by my friend and yours, Ernst von Mansfeld.

More TYW 10mm Progress

Slowly making progress on my 10mm Imperial army for the Battle of Fleurus. Since my last post, I had some reinforcements arrive in the mail (Minifig, Pendraken and Old Glory figures) and I was able to add them into the mix. 

My armies will initially be organized for those present at Fleurus and depicted in the In Deo Veritas scenario. The Imperial army has 4 early tercio units, 6 cavalry brigades, 2 detachments of shot, an artillery battery, 3 wing commanders and an army commander. 

Managed to finish up my 2nd early tercio unit (right), so halfway there. My apologies for the poor exposure and lighting, there was a deceptive amount of light and I took the snaps and uploaded via my phone. I added a MiniFigs musketeer in the front skirmish line. The rest are OG but I will add some Lancer ECW to the next tercio.

Here is an overhead shot to show the formation.

Here is the first unit of cuirassiers. I gave them a dirty red color to horse kit and dark horseflesh (with exception of musician) to give them a semblance of uniformity. Not all of the cuirassiers will be quite so uniform. Mostly OG sculpts with two Pendraken in the second rank. According to what I've read there were about equal numbers of cuirassiers and mounted arqubusiers so I will have 3 brigades of arqubusiers and 3 of cuirassiers.

My first unit of mounted arqubusiers. All OG sculpts with the exception of one Pendraken sculpt in the 2nd rank. I also did a bit of conversion on one of the riders headgear - swapping out the hat for the morion from a pikeman. I lopped the heads off, drilled holes and inserted a pin. Looks good enough for 10mm.

A rear angle shot showing the mounted arqubusiers and cuirassiers. I should mention that I went with a mix of horse colors and a mix of pale reds, yellows and greens for the color palette of the brigade. For future units, I plan to have a brigade of cuirassiers in a violet/purple color which I believe is a livery color for Felipe da Silva - one of the Imperial commanders.

And here we have the one (and only) artillery battery for the Imperial army. Again, mostly OG lead on this base with the exception of the cannon balls and barrel in the rear of the base. 

Same base, different angle.

Last but not least, here are two detachments of shot. In the battle of Fleurus, these guys were from Tercio Verdugo and deployed in a farmstead -  causing significant problems for Christian of Brunswick and the protestant left flank cavalry. Almost all of the figures are OG sculpts, there are a few MiniFigs and a few more headswaps where musketeers in a loading pose ditched their monmouth caps and got morions helmets or brimmed hats as replacements. From what I understand, the monmouth cap was only common with soldiers from northern European areas (which makes sense). 

I have two early tercio units left to paint up, four more cavalry brigades and the commanders. After that, I will tackle the Protestant army.

 

10mm TYW for In Deo Veritas

It's been a while since I posted but I have been painting. The real bugbear has been photographing my projects. Recently I picked up the 17th century ruleset In Deo Veritas. After reading through a few times, I liked them so much to start up a 10mm Thirty Years War project with some bags of Glory ECW figures I had in storage. My armies will be based on the first scenario in the IDV rules, The Battle of Fleurus. 

At any rate, here are some pictures of my first Tercio:

I snapped these with an older iPhone so my apologies on the photo quality. With the Old Glory figures, I find they are easy to paint when they are primed black and block painted with simple highlights.

Here is an overview shot to show the Tercio formation. I went with a traditional pike block with some sleeves of shot and "manga" blocks of shot at the corners. All total, there are 31 shot, 24 pike and 4 command figures (standard, musicians, officer): 59 total figures. 

I tried to go with muted colors and a fairly limited palette. The lighting makes them appear a little more vibrant than they actually are.

I hadn't applied static grass on a base in quite some time because my results were always pretty dismal. I picked up the Noch puffer bottle and I have to say I was really impressed with the results.